Klaserie

In July 2015 a work trip to South Africa left me with a gap of a few days. Instead of another hotel lobby, I spent them at Baobab Ridge Lodge in the Klaserie Private Nature Reserve, on the western edge of the Greater Kruger.

It was my first time in the African bush, and it was winter: dry grass, bare branches, cold mornings that were warm by ten. On the very first morning a leopard walked across the track ahead of the vehicle. After that came white rhinos at the roadside, buffalo moving through the scrub, and hippos in the last of the water.

On a walk with the guides the bush became smaller and closer: tracks in the sand, a mongoose in the leaf litter, a squirrel watching from a fork in a tree. I had only a 70–200 mm lens with me. I came home with far too few pixels on far too many animals, and with the decision to come back.